| 释义 |
ˈcatch-all, n. orig. U.S.
[catch- 1.]
A general receptacle. Also fig. and attrib.
1838Congress. Globe 16 Apr. App. 275/1 [The party includes] old Federalists,..Antimasons, and Abolitionists. They have, sir, been a kind of catch-all, or omnium gatherum. 1866Mrs. Stowe Lit. Foxes ii. 27 The general catch-all and menagerie..for all the family litter. 1875Howells Foregone Concl. xviii. 296 A catch-all closet in the studio. 1892Harper's Mag. June 29/1 A shrewd spider..had spread his gossamer catch-all beneath the bramble. 1897‘Mark Twain’ Following Equator xli. 383 It seemed to have been designed as a catch-all for every thing that can damage it. 1923L. J. Vance Baroque xiv. 86 The tenement yard was a simple black hole, for generations a common catch-all. 1945‘L. Lewis’ Birthday Murder (1951) vi. 88 That cupboard..has been a catchall for odds and ends for a long time. 1957N. Frye Anat. Criticism 304 The word novel..has since expanded into a catchall term which can be applied to practically any prose book that is not ‘on’ something. 1961Times 10 Feb. 17/4 At Cambridge..history had become a ‘catch-all’ for students who found classics too difficult and science too serious. 1963Lancet 19 Jan. 125/2 There is danger that it may become a catch-all term for maladies with puzzling clinical and anatomical features. |